A World War One vintage poster urging the conservation of bread. The value of bread has been the measure of costs since anitquity. "Give us this day our daily bread"
I subscribed to a World War Two list populated by students of history, both professional and serious amateur. The discussions are often very in depth and quite good. Recently there was a particularly fascinating one that strayed off into all sorts of topics, but which might best be regarded as one on the costs of things over time, and on education. As it was so interesting, I'm patching in pieces of it here, as that related to a frequent topic here.
The discussion started as follows below:
U.S. Soldiers training with M1 Thompson Submachineguns during World War Two. The Thompson, it turns out, was an extremely expensive weapon.
I have always been intrigued by the cost of WW II small
arms. Thompson submachine gun cost $225
1940 dollars ($3175 in 2013) while a Reising only cost $50 ($705). Does anyone know what a M 3 Grease Gun
cost? How about a
MP 1940?
The reply soon came:
View of M3 submachinegun's internal parts. It was a fairly cheap weapon. These were still in use by armored vehicle crewmen when I was in the National Guard in the 1980s.
A Sten was 4 pounds 3 shillings.
An M3 was $18-20 as I recall.
For those who may not know, the weapons mentioned there were the Thompson Submachinegun, the Sten Gun, and the M3 submachinegun.
There was a lot more on the costs of military firearms during World War Two, and the decline in costs during the war, but I'll not post that here, interesting though it was. Instead, I'll go on to the diversion in the conversation, which took some very interesting turns.
From here, things took a really interesting turn with an analysis of costs over time. This particular method isn't that unusual, but in this instance its unusually developed:
My Dad always converts costs to the APEGGA salary report
for Geologists. His working theory is if he had to work 1 day for an item in
the '40s then he can compare if to how long a geologist has to work today for
the same item.
It has been interesting over the years hearing about the
broad decline in labour to purchase a good, and growth in the share of time
that has gone to tax and services.
We have had a few conversations about what to compare his
cable
(TV/Internet) bill to.
I find things like this interesting, but the analysis more complicated than we might at first suppose, even though it is routinely made. So I replied:
A good theory, but you have to use items that are static
in terms of basic production. That is,
they themselves have not changed. So, how long for a loaf of bread, or how long
for a bottle of Coca Cola, or how long for a good wool suit, etc.
So you couldn't use, for example, automobiles, which cost
a great deal more
(presumably) per unit, but last a great deal longer, and
are a great deal more technologically advanced.
Even my reply isn't really very in depth analysis, but it raises the point that looking at costs over time, in real terms, is more complicated than we'd suppose. His reply in turn:
For him it is a starting point in comparison. Dad's
consistent argument is a good is a good - a 1950s 'quality car' had the
features/ safety/ reliability expected and a 2015 'quality car' will align to
expectations. Not a perfect argument - but consistent with his working point: how much of my time do I spend working to obtain
something. The $ measure was 12-17x.
Did enjoy my nephew building a head of steam about his
tuition for a Geology degree in 2005. Turns out to be 1/3 to 1/4 of the labour
cost of a Geology degree in 1946...
Another participant replied with an analysis similar to that above:
Using the newly devised Camaro Cost Labor Index (CCLI)
[trademark pending] a new 1969 SS Camaro cost about $2,500 new. With the minimum wage at
$1.60@hr. In 1969, it would take
1,562.5 hours to buy that car. A 2013 Camaro 1SS is about $32,000, and with a national
minimum wage of
$7.25@hr. you are looking at
4,413.79 hours to get that bad boy. I did not calculate for withholding, FICA,
but just a rough calculation.
If you do the calc with Seattle's $15 minimum wage, you
get 2,133.33 hours.
Another participant brought in the example of private aircraft, which is something I wouldn't have thought of or known about, although I have wondered from time to time why private aircraft seemed so much more commonly owned in the 50s and 60s.
1969 Cessna 172K sold for $12,500 or 7,812 minimum wage
hours
2015 Cessna 172SP will be around $288,000 or 39,724 hours
(19.8 years)
Quite a remarkable difference, naturally causing some surprise. A reply came asking:
Is the avionics that drive up the cost, or weight-saving
materials or both?
The response.
Both, plus cost of inspections and certifications
required by the government.
And an addition by a different participant, which raised a point I was thinking.
Liability.
The body is the same and most of the avionics are the
same. Where they are different Liability and certification testing are a huge component.
Both planes operate under the same base certificate
Insurance cost for Cessna that is added to the cost of
the aircraft is one of the larger components.
In 1969 people weren't suing Cessna when a piece that they failed to
inspect or maintain broke on a 45 year old aircraft.
Cessna stopped building aircraft after defending
themselves from too many lawsuits.
Congress passed a product liability law putting a cap on how years after
an aircraft was built that the manufacturer
maintained liability. That
allowed Cessna to start producing aircraft again.
I had at one time read that Cessna had indeed ceased making aircraft and when I'd mentioned it to somebody, they informed I was in error. As it turns out, I was and I wasn't, I just hadn't realized that Congress had stepped into limit liability in regards to aircraft or at least this class of aircraft. I probably should have realized that.
I said, in response to that statement.
I don't know anything about the cost of aircraft, but
this would have been my guess also.
As I'm employed in the field, I guess I can spout off about it a bit.
Protection against liability has become a necessary
plague in the US. Any one, can be sued
for anything, no matter how stupid it is, at any time. We like to say that we have the best justice
system in the world. Whether or not that's true is questionable, but we sure
have the most over exercised one. And I
say that as a person who makes their bread and butter defending people against
those suits, so I suppose I'm profiting by that.
Lawyer, late 1930s or early 1940s. I've used this photo before, and while I haven't previously noted it, this particular lawyer is an African American lawyer, an occupation for blacks that was not as uncommon as it might be supposed, as the law has always been one of the occupations that had space for minorities in the United States and the United Kingdom. This lawyer is in a law library. Chances are that he's fairly typical for the era, and is a solo practitioner or in a small partnership, and litigation likely made up on a percentage of a general practice.
This is a topic on which lawyers aren't really supposed to voice this opinion, but we all know it's true. The costs of litigation are a major factor in the price of American goods, the question is whether that's just or not.
A person can argue both ways, but the problem with the argument is that people who make it, one way or another, tend to have a vested interest in the argument, or they tend to acquire the views of their clients. Plaintiffs attorneys will commonly dismiss this argument claiming that this isn't a real factor, and then going on to some species of the Homer Stokes argument, which I tend to think is something they absorb over time, and start to believe.* Truth be known civil litigation in the U.S. is at least somewhat out of control and a large number of fairly specious suits are brought. Some will claim that this serves the interest of justice for all, by insuring that the courthouse doors are open, but it probably just gums things up. I shouldn't complain, of course, but a person shouldn't pretend the truth isn't the truth, even if they happen to benefit by whatever the problem may be. After all, policemen don't pretend that there aren't crimes, although that is undoubtedly a poor analogy.
Of course, part of this here might also reflect our concepts of risk. We've gotten really used to aircraft and we pretty much assume a level of safety analogous with them that's equivalent to cars, which get safer every year. So perhaps the increase in liability exposure reflects that. In the 30s, 40s, and 50s, we knew that they were dangerous and perhaps we just figured people took their chances with aircraft. Now, they're safer, and we don't view it that way perhaps. So, if something goes wrong perhaps we're more inclined to sue about it now, on this sort of topic.
Indeed, I definitely think there's something to that. Plenty of cars made in the 1950s lacked seat belts, had vacuum windshield wipers, and gasoline tanks that were probably dangerous. Indeed, the frame design was dangerous. People didn't sue for any of those reasons if they got into an accident, and indeed failure to wear seat belts was not allowed as a defense of any sort until quite recently. But, as cars can now be built with all these features being much safer and there being many more safety features in general, if a car manufacturer came out with a car built like one in the 1950s, there would no doubt be lawsuits, and well there should be too. And lawsuits frankly drive things towards being safer, whether we like to admit it or not.
At this point another participant brought in the cost of a college education, which brought in a new analysis.
University of Wyoming College of Education, center, 1950s. Geology building, a much older structure, to the left, the College of Education to the right. The University of Wyoming got rolling as part of the state's bid for statehood, as the thought was that if a Territory had a university, it deserved to be a state, or at least was pretty darned civic minded.
Do the same calculation on attending college! In 1982 I was able to pay state school
tuition based on working a summer job at minimum wage. For the vast majority of institutions of
higher ed that cannot be done anymore!
At this point, I noted:
Coincident with that, note that the college degree has
become much more common, as well as the need for a degree. If you take that back to World War Two, the
change is stunning.
I've forgotten the percentage, but a relatively high
percentage of U.S.servicemen in World War Two hadn't graduated from high
school. A high school degree at the
time, in comparison, was much more valuable in terms of the work place than it
is now. A university degree of nearly
any kind pretty much entitled a person to a white collar business position,
although there were a lot of men (and we're speaking mostly of men) who had
white collar jobs who had not gone into college.
In contrast, a college degree of some sort is now an
entry level requirement for many jobs that previously it was not. And certifications have spread to everything.
So college costs more, is more common, and a degree is
worth less.
This is at topic which as already been addressed on our site here, but it's still an interesting one. And it was followed up by another poster, who noted:
My father joined the Navy while in 11th grade when he
turned 18. Served for 4 years to be
discharged after the war. When he got
home he was awarded a degree by his high school based on his Naval
experiences. He always complained
because he thought surviving a three shore bombardments, a strafing, a kamikaze
attack, and a ship-to-ship engagement with two other Japanese destroyers was
worth at least a two year degree.
I am curious as to if it was a common practice for high
schools to award degrees to men who left early?
And my reply, which I'll note wasn't the universal reply in regards to granting degrees:
My high school Alma Mater, Natrona County High School.
It wasn't common here.
I don't think it happened at all here.
At least some returning veterans actually came back into high school to
finish their degrees.
One of my father's friends left the local high school
when he turned 18 to join the Army. He
served in the ETO and then went on to serve in the post war Constabulary in
Germany. When he came back home he
joined the Fire Department, which had been his lifelong dream.
This is interesting, in context, for a variety of
reasons. Now it wouldn't be possible to
join the Army with no high school degree for the most part (there is a small
program that opens up the service for GED holders). Of course, there was a huge war going
on. But also, now it wouldn't be
possible to join the Fire Department without a high school degree. Indeed locally the city firemen all have two
year fire degrees.
I also added:
This causes me to recall an interview I'd heard of a
World War One veteran. He'd graduated from his local high school back east, and
then been told of an office job with an insurance company in a nearby
neighboring town. He'd gone to work
there and, but for World War One, had worked his entire career there, rising up
in the ranks in the company.
Again, now, I don't think you'd be let in without a four
year college degree.
Indeed, I can think of a relative of mine who entered a
large Anglo-Canadian company as an office boy and rose up to very high in the
company. Pretty much impossible
now. One of my grandfathers left home,
with his parents' permission, to go to work in another state at age 13 and
ended up owning a substantial local company by the time of his premature death
in his 40s.
The point, I guess, of all of that is to compare not only
costs, but value. It's interesting how some things have increased in cost,
but decreased in value. Perhaps the
world's just that much more technical, or perhaps it's just that the education
is that much more common.
A participant added this very interesting detail:
In 1940, about 29 percent of white males 25-years-old and
over had completed four years of high school. It was 9 percent for blacks and
other non-whites.
SOURCE:
Stunning information, isn't it? That's an incredibly low graduation rate.
Today, in our state, it's regarded as a crisis that nearly, or rather "only" about 80% of the students at NCHS will graduate. In the 40s, 30% was regarded as good enough. Granted, there was a Depression going on and people found work as their families needed the money, but I doubt that this percentage was actually all that different from 15 years prior in good times.
NCHS students, 1946. The boys are mostly wearing JrROTC uniforms, as JrROTC was mandatory at NCHS at the time.
Indeed, around here the high school graduation rates tend to go up in bad times, as there's no tempting work for students. Not that the same analyiss would apply to the 30s and 40s, as the economic situation of a Depression, in an era in which assistance was often wanting, was completely different.
My somewhat shocked reply:
Wow, that's a much lower percentage of graduation than
I'd realized.
Another poster added:
And many degrees, such as -Studies degrees are worthless,
if we go on the assumption that employability in a real job that pays wages, as
opposed to sinecures like, say, community organizing is the determinant.
I weigh in again, now mixing the topics of vehicles and education:
You know, going back to this example, it strikes me how
interesting but difficult these sort of analogies are (keeping in mind that I
like this sort of topic).
Anyhow, I've had a lot of cares over the years. I've owned new ones made in the 2000s and
really old ones, with the oldest one I ever owned being a 1946 CJ2A (most of my
vehicles have been 4x4s). In thinking on
it, and thinking back to my father's vehicles, prior to at least the 1980s if a
vehicle made it past 65,000 miles it was doing good. Usually my father's were shot by that
time. The vehicles I had made prior to
1960s models were pretty worn out by that time.
We all thought it amazing if a vehicle went past 100,000 miles. I had a 1974 Dodge D150 that went to 145,000
miles before it died, and I was amazed.
Now this is nothing. For
example, a few years ago I sold a 1996 F250 diesel that had 195,000 miles on it and
the only thing really wrong with the vehicles is that the body was rusting out.
On that vehicle, I'd never even had the brakes
serviced. I have a Dodge D3500 diesel right now that has 112,000 miles on it and
the brakes have never been serviced. In
comparison, the vehicles I had made prior to the 1980s always had something
that needed to be worked on. The CJ2A I
had practically required a full time mechanic.
My point here is that I'm not really sure that the old
ones were cheaper. If you keep them until they fall apart, and I tend to do
that, some of them last forever now.
Getting up to 200,000 miles isn't uncommon, when once that was unheard
of. And with good vehicles, while
servicing them is more expensive, they really don't have to be serviced as
often. Maybe we really brake even with
them over time and they're no more expensive than ever.
In contrast on the educational aspect we talked about, I
wonder if here we get less bang for our buck.
We used the example of geology degrees.
Up into maybe the 70s finding somebody with a geology degree higher than
a BS was uncommon (I'm told). I knew
working geologist in the 1980s who were near retirement age who had worked
their whole careers with BS degrees. By
the time I had the BS, you needed an MS just to find an entry level job. I think that's remained the case. And I'm sure there are a lot of other
examples.
Anyhow, what I wonder is if the price of material goods
has stayed flatter than we suppose, and maybe even declined in real terms on
some things, while the investment in education for a vocation has had to
dramatically increase.
The conversation returned to automobiles, with degrees still remaining a topic.
I recently purchased a time machine; a 2014 Camaro SS.
When I get inside, I feel 18 again. Anyway, the service manager is a real car
guy and we were talking about the various generations of Camaro cars (mine is
considered Gen V, and a Gen VI is coming out in 2016 or so). I had look at a
1969, but realized that with the 2014 I'd get ABS, fuel injection, traction
control, air bags, computer controlled everything and so on. He went on to say
that even the cheapest car Chevy sells, the Spark ($12K) will go 100,000 miles
with just oil changes and basic service. He said the 1969 SS's you see today
are around because they have been rebuilt extensively; he said getting 60,000+
miles out a 1969 era American car was an achievement. If I keep this 2014
Camaro to 120,000 miles, it would have taken two 1969 equivalents to match that
feat with the same level of service and care.
I agree strongly on the MA/BA point. I went to grad
school in 1989, and had a teacher that talked about Barbara Tuchman, and what
she was able to do with a BA. I think another point is the age people are
getting a masters. A lot of schools of education have a MAT (Masters of
Teaching) where the BA and MA are run together as a five year program. I have
an uncle who got a MBA in the 1970s. He graduated from a prestigious undergrad
school and applied to an Ivy League school. He was told he had an impressive
resume and then they said go work for a year or two and then we will let you
in. The drive in education today is that everyone gets a masters as soon as
possible. I am working on my second masters, a M.Ed. at almost 50, and I think
I am getting far more out of it with 20 years of life/professional experience
behind me than if I had done it at 25.
To which I replied:
Indeed, I'd say that the amount of care it took to get a
1969 car to 60,000 miles was much greater than the amount it generally takes to
get a present model to 120,000.
Indeed, this is something that my vehicles out front
exhibit. In front of my house right now
are three Dodge 4x4s, a 1962 W300 (a true Power Wagon, a very heavy truck), a
1997 D150 and a 2007 D3500. They have
63,000, 120,000 and 112,000 miles on them respectively.
Of the three, the 2007 requires the least amount of
attention. The brakes have never been
touched on it. When it was new, as it is
a diesel and had a new model engine at the time, it had some problems with the
diesel particulate filter, but those were long ago worked out. It's had one major computer/filter thing
occur with it, but that wasn't expensive.
The 97 was a very cheap truck when we bought it and I don't know
anything of its history before we owned it.
It had over 100,000 miles when we bought it. We have had its brakes worked on, but that's about it.
I love the 62, and it's a very heavy truck of a type
basically not made anymore. When I need
it, I need it. But I drive it very little.
Since I've owned it (a very long time) I've had a variety of interesting
mechanical things that have had to be done, none of which are abnormal for a
truck of its vintage, but all of which would be odd for a modern truck. It hasn't been rebuilt, but I've paid very
careful attention to it in the 30 years I've owned it. I've completely replaced the extremely heavy
brakes, which are barely adequate for a vehicle if its weight to start
with. I have to watch the old bias ply
tires carefully. The clutch has been
replaced. And so on. On a 1962, that was typical. For a 2014, that'd be so aggravating you'd
think it a lemon.
The other thing about vehicles is that at some point,
they crossed into a nearly new, or perhaps just highly evolved, class of
implement. So at that point the
comparison starts to break down. Having
had a lot of old vehicles, I used to agree with a friend who held the position
that there wasn't much difference, in terms of fundamental mechanics, between
cars of the 1930s and modern cars, but I no longer agree. It was true of the vehicles I had that were
made before 2000 or so. My 1990 F150
wasn't all that much different, in basic terms, than my 1974 D150, which wasn't
all that much different in basic mechanical terms, from my 1962 W300, save for
that the 1962 doesn't have power anything.
But now new vehicles have crossed some threshold where they are starting
to bear about as much resemblance to earlier vehicles as the F35 does to the
Sopwith Camel. So a person isn't really
even buying quite the same thing anymore.
On education again, you raise a very good point about how
that worked. Even when I was first out of
school with a BS, I routinely heard people speak of "going back" to
get a Masters. Now, they just often go
on. I was friends with several grad
students when I was an undergrad, and probably 1/3d of them had worked as geologist before "going
back" for a masters. The other side of that is that if we go back further, into the 50s
and 60s, a BA was so marketable that a person who held one could gain entry
into the white collar corporate world irrespective of the major. When I was a kid adults still spoke with a
little bit of awe about somebody "having a college degree" or
"being the first one in their family to get a college degree" without mentioning what the major was. When I've heard that recently, for young people it brings a big yawn.
Some of that, I'd note is self inflicted in that I really
think the degrees themselves have become much cheaper. When I was an undergrad at UW we took one
class that had a set 50% failure rate, just to weed people out. It was frightening, but that's what they
did. Later, in law school, they didn't
worry much about attrition. Now it seems like concerns for keeping people in
programs is much higher. The state bar
here used to have four sections, two being national portions, one being a state
test, and one being an interview with the bar examiners. If 40% failed, oh well was the attitude. Over time they eliminated the interview, and finally as
of last year we wiped out the state test, so now all we have is the
professional responsibility exam and the UBE, a national test. We don't even test on state law topics. Perhaps cutting the other way, however, there
is now a state test to be a Registered Professional Geologist.
And I added, throwing in the topic of real property, which I've discussed elsewhere here:
While we're on all of this, one thing I should note that
is definitely different is the price of real property, specifically
agricultural real property.
As we go back towards World War Two, it's interesting to
note that the Homestead Act only came to an end with the passage of the Taylor
Grazing Act, which was passed into law in 1934.
That was only a mere seven years prior to the start of the war for the
U.S.
The peak year for homesteading in the U.S. was 1913,
which was a real record breaker. More
homestead were filed in 1913 and more land transferred out of the Federal
Domain than in any other year before or after.
It's common (and I've done it myself) to attribute the peak in
homesteading in the teens to World War One, but in actuality, the peak came in
advance of the war. The war did boost
homesteading as there was a boom in the North American wheat and horse markets
due to the war, however.
As late as the 50s it was still not too uncommon to look
down a bit on rural residents as bumpkins, etc.
And it was a pretty common goal of rural people to get their kids off
the farm and into towns. For that
matter, that attitude has lingered on and you'll still find it in families that
have been in agriculture all along. Its
sometimes pretty hard for really rural families to grasp that people in town
actually work. However, what has really
definitely changed is that at least up into the 1950s a person could still get
into agriculture if they wanted to.
Locally, due to various factors, it was still possible to do that in the
1980s. I know at least three families
that were not wealthy that acquired substantial ranch lands in that period.
Now, that's very far from true. Ranch land values are so high that it would
be absolutely impossible to pay the value off on production over a lifetime,
indeed a couple of lifetimes, and so true producers hardly every simple start
up. Even existing operations have to be very careful about that.
That's a pretty fundamental change really, and not really
a good one in my view.
An interesting standard of living addition was made by one poster.:
School facilities, West Virginia, 1921.
If I recall this statistic correctly, the 1940 census
showed that only 45% of households had indoor plumbing. I say 'only' but people
back then would have looked at it as simply reality. A different world.
It's odd to think of, but if we do look at the American population in 1940, the year prior to Pearl Harbor, certainly a lot of people had grown up without indoor plumbing. That was probably as revolutionary to them as all the electronic stuff around is to people my age (51).
And a return to the discussion on college costs:
One reason college costs so much today is the salaries
they pay the administrators. Here in
Atlanta, the head of Georgia State University is paid $750,000 per year - for
keeping a bunch of college kids in line! That's more than the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff and he is responsible for the defense of the U.S.!
A person in academics replied about the tremendous rise in costs of academics from internal forces. It was a remarkable rise, which drew reactions from a professor, noting that he didn't share in the rise in salaries that went to administration, and to a person outside of academics who generally objected to the costs of administrative salaries, comparing those salaries to civil servant salaries.
I added this on the topic:
I was sort of confronted recently, by my young German
co-worker, about the amount of money that goes into school athletics in the
US. It's a bit of an irony in my case,
as I don't follow college level athletics at all.
I would note that the amount of money that college big
sports coaches receive seems very high to me, no doubt very far in excess of
what any professor receives. I always
hear it justified in terms of "it brings money into the school". Maybe it does, but that always seems to be
sort of a lame explanation to me.
Seeing as this thread tracks changes and costs from the
WWII era until now, I've sometimes noted that it seems to me that college
sports were pretty well followed in the 1940s.
Football in particular really seems to have been a college sport at the
time, more than a professional sport.
I'm sure that there were sports scholarships and all, but it does seem
that the "student athletes" were more likely to actually be students
at the time. I wonder what coach pay was
like? My guess is that they didn't make
much more than any other professor and maybe less, but I don't really
know. For that matter, I don't know when
college athletics really took on their present status.
It is interesting that athletics in general had enough of
a lesser status such that some individuals, like "Whizzer" White,
chose to go on to other careers after World War Two rather than go back into
pro sports.
I was surprised, on the last item, when this information was posted:
In the 30's Dana X. Bible was hired by University of
Texas with a 15 year guarantee contract for $15,000 per year. In today's
dollars $$250,000.
Sort of shows how important college level sports were, even in the midst of the Great Depression. I would never have guessed that.
That whole diversion in the conversation was surprising to me. I"m not sure that I agree at all that professors are overpaid, that's for sure. I think they're underpaid. Are administrations too top heavy? I have no idea.
I do think that there's a smouldering crisis in university eduction, however. The cost of it is unsustainable long term, and we've gone from having serious, if not always economically lucrative disciplines, to a plethora of disciplines that are not either always serious or lucrative.
Quite frankly, we just shouldn't have a situation where everybody has a college degree, as if we require that much education just to work in any field, we're doing something wrong. That view has tended to cheapen degrees. Most parents dream of having their kids attend college, but society cannot really accommodate that dream. Basically, if a person doesn't have the personal makeup to attend what a college or university of the 1940s or 50s was like, they probably shouldn't be in college.
Unless the hold up is money, in which case we should address it, but only where it serves society's interest, in my view. We're presently doing this through college loans, but we as a society will loan on anything. A while back I saw a young woman protesting her student loans which she wasn't going to be able to pay back. Well, she was working on a masters in Art History. Of course she isn't going to be able to pay that back, and the United States had no business or need to loan her the money to do that either. If she wanted to pursue it on her own, the more power to her, but if the public trust is involved, the loans really ought to be for something the US needs. Right now, that would be in engineering and the sciences, and probably also medicine.
It wouldn't be in things like Art History. Quite frankly, it wouldn't be in law either, which is flooded as a market.
Universities should also be made, somehow, to avoid watering down degrees.
On the other hand, at least in my state, the state does a tremendous job of finding ways to send kids to school. It's fantastic. I went to the local community college today with Marcus to help him register for a college class he's taking, even though he's a junior in high school. And because of a county program, the school district picks up the tab. It's a great opportunity for high school kids.
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* Homer Stokes is the character in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? who is running against Governor Pappy O'Daniel. Stokes claims to be representing "the little man" and travels with a midget in order to make his point.